The Secrets We Kept

by Lara Prescott

Secretary: a person entrusted with a secret. From the Latin secretus, secretum. We all typed, but some of us did more. We spoke no word of the work we did after we covered our typewriters each day. Unlike some of the men, we could keep our secrets.

One might think this scenario plays out only in high school or college, but the politics of friendship are tricky at every age.

Back then, we believed books could be weapons—that literature could change the course of history.

We unveil ourselves in the pieces we want others to know, even those closest to us. We all have our secrets.

According to my former employer, one can sum up the entire spectrum of human motivations with a formula called MICE: Money, Ideology, Compromise, Ego.